Columns

The South Carolina state budget is split into two major pieces, part 1A and part 1B. While both parts are excruciatingly boring to read, the first part, 1A, is at least understandable. At least it looks like a budget.
Each agency has its own chart of line items showing how much money is allocated to each agency, program, function, etc. That’s why, when members of the news media talk about “the budget,” they’re almost always talking about that portion of the budget they can read, part 1A.

You can’t make this stuff up. And if you did, no one would believe it. But it’s true – South Carolina legislators are once again talking about nullification.
It’s no wonder, I guess, given how well that worked out for us last time.
When this nullification stuff first happened in 1850s and 1860s, Charleston Unionist James L. Petigru uttered his famous description of the Palmetto state: “Poor South Carolina, too small for a republic, too large for an insane asylum.”

Although our society is becoming more and more plugged into the Internet, there are some things the online universe cannot provide or substitute for us.
This includes the unique services provided to citizens by community newspapers.
Weekly and small daily papers help strengthen communities, build local economies and report on local governments.

Am I a hate-monger? Am I a homophobe? Do I hate those who are not like me: those who don’t look like me, dress like me, talk like me, believe like me?
Am I opposed to those who disagree with what I believe, and how my belief system impacts how I live my life?
Am I insensitive to those who hold to convictions and practices that differ from mine? Do I practice hate-speech against those who live differently, believe differently, practice different lifestyles than I?

Across South Carolina, options for care for senior citizens and persons with disabilities are dwindling, while our escalating population continues to place a greater reliance on our state’s available resources.
Helping to fill part of this void is adult day care, which gives family members who care for a loved one the ability to have a break in their caregiving responsibilities to maintain their normal work schedule while a dependent family member receives valuable services at a day-care center.

Editor’s note: Following is the essay Danielle Phillips entered in the Smoke-Out Contest, sponsored by the Lancaster County Health & Wellness Commission.

Why do you want to throw your life away? Everyone is given one chance to see amazingly great things that the world has to offer and live life to the fullest, so why? Why do you take life for granted? Then before you know it, everything is taken away from you.

“In our adversary system of criminal justice, any person haled into court, who is too poor to hire a lawyer, could not be assured a fair trial, unless counsel is provided for him. This seems to us to be an obvious truth.” – Justice Hugo Black, March 18, 1963, in the U.S. Supreme Court case of Gideon vs. Wainwright.
This year, we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Gideon case. This decision set in motion the greatest transformation to the American criminal justice system in history.